minute. He smiled at Osbourne and beckoned him towards one of the many chairs.
“Hi, Frank, I thought I would drop off the reports you needed.” He bounced in with such youthful vigour that Garner felt tired just looking at him, burning all that excess energy.
“Oh, and I need your approval for a project I already began. Those ‘paper-heads’ need it signed off to get the engineers to move onto the next stage of completion. They won’t budge unless it's authorised and they still won’t take my orders,” he moaned. He knew his age counted against him with some of the old-timers.
The ‘paper heads’ he referred to were put there expressly by Garner to hold him back; otherwise he would be running through Zeke’s global funding like a lizard on hot desert sand. The fund was large enough to manage even that, but Osbourne needed something to pace his work, or his team would collapse from exhaustion and the island would be overrun with his projects.
He smiled, plonking himself in one of the chairs recently vacated by the Venezuelan Councillor, who still wouldn’t give Garner the support for the military build-up, mainly due to historical animosity towards anyone from Britain, of which Pennington-Brown represented the worst example of, in the Councillor’s eyes.
“You look as if you need a few days on the beach, Frank,” he said, keeping up the barrage as he got comfortable, giving Garner no time to even greet him.
The door opened again as Annie walked in, a cup of tea in one hand and a cold beer in the other, for Osbourne.
Frank had still not had a chance to speak; he hadn’t said a word yet.
He took the cup from her. She looked at him with concern, but he waved her away with a reassuring smile and then turned back to study the young man opposite. Finally, he had an opportunity to speak.
“Ossie, you never cease to amaze me. I had a call from Fletcher in the stores, and he said you were asking for immediate release of some fairly hefty armaments that are already in short supply. What on earth do you want with – ” he quoted from his notes, “ ...four X4F multi-lasers with independent directional tracking, six XCET missile tubes with full auto-reload magazines as well as a variety of miscellaneous other munitions. What are you building down there - your own personal Gunship?”
“Yes! but not for me. For Zeke.” Osbourne admitted proudly.
“For Zeke? I just spoke to him; he made no mention of you building him a ship.”
“That’s because he doesn’t know about it.” Osbourne rallied.
Garner shook his head, he felt one of those headaches coming on. “Why are you building Zeke a ship when he hasn’t asked you to, and, for that matter, neither have I?”
Osbourne sighed, as if he was the only one who saw things in the real world and was tired of explaining everything he did to anyone, and everyone. Which was a little unfair on Frank because Garner gave him virtually everything he asked for. It was one of those things that young people did when faced with an imaginary stop sign that was in reality simply a request for more information.
“Frank, have you noticed how miserable Zeke seems to be lately? He’s put so much into getting the technology into the hands of people like you and me. He had such high hopes of getting Zirkos and that ship AI of his to help us. He made a life for himself that included space — Ship, and Zirkos — all of which has now disintegrated, and now even Pod has deserted him.”
“True,” Garner admitted. The lad was right. Callaghan hadn’t been at all happy lately. Annie had even tried to get him to link up with a potential soul-mate; that had backfired badly. They had all noticed how Zeke had become withdrawn into himself since Zirkos had gone. He backed off a little knowing full well he was going to have to relent, but determined he wasn’t going to just rubber-stamp his expenses.
“Why do you think building Zeke a Gunship will help him?”
Osbourne
“Hi, Frank, I thought I would drop off the reports you needed.” He bounced in with such youthful vigour that Garner felt tired just looking at him, burning all that excess energy.
“Oh, and I need your approval for a project I already began. Those ‘paper-heads’ need it signed off to get the engineers to move onto the next stage of completion. They won’t budge unless it's authorised and they still won’t take my orders,” he moaned. He knew his age counted against him with some of the old-timers.
The ‘paper heads’ he referred to were put there expressly by Garner to hold him back; otherwise he would be running through Zeke’s global funding like a lizard on hot desert sand. The fund was large enough to manage even that, but Osbourne needed something to pace his work, or his team would collapse from exhaustion and the island would be overrun with his projects.
He smiled, plonking himself in one of the chairs recently vacated by the Venezuelan Councillor, who still wouldn’t give Garner the support for the military build-up, mainly due to historical animosity towards anyone from Britain, of which Pennington-Brown represented the worst example of, in the Councillor’s eyes.
“You look as if you need a few days on the beach, Frank,” he said, keeping up the barrage as he got comfortable, giving Garner no time to even greet him.
The door opened again as Annie walked in, a cup of tea in one hand and a cold beer in the other, for Osbourne.
Frank had still not had a chance to speak; he hadn’t said a word yet.
He took the cup from her. She looked at him with concern, but he waved her away with a reassuring smile and then turned back to study the young man opposite. Finally, he had an opportunity to speak.
“Ossie, you never cease to amaze me. I had a call from Fletcher in the stores, and he said you were asking for immediate release of some fairly hefty armaments that are already in short supply. What on earth do you want with – ” he quoted from his notes, “ ...four X4F multi-lasers with independent directional tracking, six XCET missile tubes with full auto-reload magazines as well as a variety of miscellaneous other munitions. What are you building down there - your own personal Gunship?”
“Yes! but not for me. For Zeke.” Osbourne admitted proudly.
“For Zeke? I just spoke to him; he made no mention of you building him a ship.”
“That’s because he doesn’t know about it.” Osbourne rallied.
Garner shook his head, he felt one of those headaches coming on. “Why are you building Zeke a ship when he hasn’t asked you to, and, for that matter, neither have I?”
Osbourne sighed, as if he was the only one who saw things in the real world and was tired of explaining everything he did to anyone, and everyone. Which was a little unfair on Frank because Garner gave him virtually everything he asked for. It was one of those things that young people did when faced with an imaginary stop sign that was in reality simply a request for more information.
“Frank, have you noticed how miserable Zeke seems to be lately? He’s put so much into getting the technology into the hands of people like you and me. He had such high hopes of getting Zirkos and that ship AI of his to help us. He made a life for himself that included space — Ship, and Zirkos — all of which has now disintegrated, and now even Pod has deserted him.”
“True,” Garner admitted. The lad was right. Callaghan hadn’t been at all happy lately. Annie had even tried to get him to link up with a potential soul-mate; that had backfired badly. They had all noticed how Zeke had become withdrawn into himself since Zirkos had gone. He backed off a little knowing full well he was going to have to relent, but determined he wasn’t going to just rubber-stamp his expenses.
“Why do you think building Zeke a Gunship will help him?”
Osbourne
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